News

Whole School Events

2018 - 2019

29th April - 3rd May 2019 - Triangle Charity Week

Triangle house organised 4 events across the week to raise money for Victa. A decorate "Oscar", Billy's buddy dog, in rainbow colours, competition, an after school sale of books, DVDs and toys, a sponsored blind-folded obstacle course and a dress down day, wearing all the colours of the rainbow.

It has been an amazing week of fund raising. Particular thanks goes to Tom, Chris and Colin who ran the sponsored event and house captains and helpers, who ran the sale everyday. Tom ,Chris and Colin also ran in the London Marathon last weekend!! Chris was an inspiration to the children, saying that being blind was an inconvenience and that he did not let it limit what he wanted to achieve in life. Congratulations everyone.

28th March 2019 - STEM Final

Mary Elton children were part of 200 children that took part in the STEM Challenge final at the Will Memorial Building in Bristol. Children competed with birds on a wire they had made that were able to pick up metallic fish form a sea of plastic debris. This is part of a project many schools are working to raise awareness of the issue of plastic in our oceans. The awards were sponsored by Hydro Internal of Clevedon. Beatrix, a representative of the company, gave out the awards. Professor Alice Roberts kindly helped give the awards out too.

18th - 22nd March 2019 - STEM Week

STEM week was a great success. Children across the school learnt about the issue of plastic in the ocean and took actions to help, such as writing to MPs, learning a song about the impact of plastic and planning beach cleans for later in the year. Scientists and engineers came in to talk to the children about the problem and encouraged their enthusiasm. To help reinforce the message our children designed sea birds, that could 'fly' down a wire, and with its magnetic beak pick up paper clipped fish out of a 'sea' of plastic. Model puffins, gannets and albatrosses could be seen swooping in classrooms, corridors and in the assembly hall. To quote some children in Year 4: '"we enjoyed planning , making and competing in a school challenge, especially with all of us in the hall together with a huge wire that went across the hall - the birds went miles.! It was great to be able to reuse things to make our models and this helped us to show that you must throw things away properly so that birds are not harmed. We are also proud of our selves because this project came from us - it was our idea - the idea of the whole school - yes we are achieving a lot."

10th - 23rd March - Reunion Island Visitors

International education was greatly enhanced at Mary Elton and All Saints East Clevedon Primary schools, with a visit from two teachers from Reunion Island. Work-shadowing for two weeks, Hélène and Valérie learnt about the wide variety of teaching and learning styles that are commonplace within the schools. They loved the focus on learning styles as well as on content. They remarked on the excellent use that was made of online games in lessons and they were also impressed by the high level of French language proficiency among the pupils. The visitors showed photos of the landscape, vegetation and animal life on their island, which inspired staff and pupils alike to plan a return visit. The pupils were especially excited by the active volcano, with some planning to become volcanologists of the future. Hélène and Valérie returned to their island, excited to introduce a great many new strategies into their classrooms and to replicate the STEM project they helped with here, to highlight the environmental damage being done by humans across the world who allow waste plastic to enter the oceans.

13th March 2019 - Sam Gayton Visit

Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 were treated to a visit from the author Sam Gayton. Sam is a hugely entertaining performer and he enthralled all of KS2 with readings from his latest book, "The Last Zoo". He also talked about how he generates ideas for his stories using the question "What if?"

Books on the Hill from Clevedon put on a pop-up book shop and managed to sell all of the books they brought with them. Mary Elton Primary School is a member of The North Somerset group of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. Therefore, we are offered these opportunities at no cost to the school or children.

7th March 2019 - World Book Day

A fantastic array of characters and costumes around school today! We shared a story in a whole school assembly then each teacher had a small group of children from across the year groups in their classes sharing more stories!

25th February - 1st March 2019 - Arts Week

This week the whole school have been busy creative spiders! Mary Elton is entering the Clevedon Pier Arts Competition as part of North Somerset Arts week. The children created artwork from recycled materials and then showcased their 'rubbish' art in a pop up exhibition in the school hall on Friday afternoon. The children used their imagination to create outstanding art work and also reflected on the importance of looking after our planet. The children really took on board the message of: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

11th February 2019 - Art work displayed at local cinema!

One child from each class at Mary Elton, presented the collaborative painting they worked on with the artist Eleanor Whiteman, to the Curzon cinema this week. The painting is of a local soldier catching poppies on Clevedon pier and commemorates the centenary of WW1. The painting was kindly framed by Splash of Clevedon. The painting has been hung in the Oak room in the cinema (the cafe area), where it can be seen by the public. It has been great for our children to have been able to work with our wider community and then present a piece of legacy artwork.

5th February 2019 - Safer Internet Day!

Each year group marked 'Safer Internet day' in their own way and produced some fantastic work that is now displayed in our ICT suite;

EYFS read 'digiduck' and discussed how the problem was solved. They drew what they use electronics for e.g. Ipad, phones etc then explained it to class teacher. Teachers checked in to see if they understood what to do if anything on electronics stuff bothered them and how/what they would do.

Year 1 read the story of 'Smartie the Penguin' and wrote some advice for him. The children thought about the different adults they would ask for help to keep safe when using technology.

Year 2 visited 'Hectors World' and found out about E-Safety Heroes. They thought about who they could go to if we weren't sure about a message or a question online and talked about trusted adults in school and at home. We made illustrations to show what we had learned.

Year 3 likened the internet to their power of reading text ‘Into the Forest’. They discussed the hidden dangers of the forest and of being online and how we need to protect ourselves. For Year 3, this was keeping our personal information safe, the importance of asking for help and telling our grown ups. In groups we considered different scenarios and how we would react. We then talked through as a whole class the appropriate responses.

Year 4 used the 'Thinkuknow 8-10s' website to locate advice and support pages. They were able to distinguish between safe and unsafe behaviours online. They then were able to articulate advice on how children can stay safe online - with a group taking one page each to create an informative poster. The different categories were; Play, Like, Share, Chat, Lock and Explore. In groups, they also devised an e-Safety quiz aimed at different aged children.

Year 5 discussed how they can build a good reputation in life and then, of course, electronically! They had a helpful discussion on what was and was not appropriate to share online and made posters to demonstrate our understanding and to advise others. They can't wait to see them displayed!

In Year 6, they had a child-led discussion about what safer internet day was about and why it is important. They discussed lots of different scenarios that children thought might be worrying and what they could do to stay safe. They shared lots of ideas and all were very engaged. They then worked in pairs to produce posters for other children to give tips to keep themselves safe online.

In addition, a small group of Year 5 and Year 6 children attended Clevedon School in the afternoon to work with their digital leaders on creating informative clips about e-Safety for their schools.

17th - 20th December 2018 - KS2 Christmas Carol Services

KS2 enjoyed visiting St Andrew's Church this week to participate in our annual carol services. Using a blend of carols, songs, readings and poems, we retold the Christmas story and built a tableau of characters from it. Our teachers were proud of our respectful behaviour inside the church and the confidence we showed when speaking and singing out. We are grateful to all those who supported the children in learning lines, tunes and to those who provided costumes. Thanks also to Rev Cranshaw and the team at St Andrew's for making us feel so welcome.

13th December 2018 - Visit to Hello Pace

Pace (www.hellopace.com) welcomed our School Councillors to see their new prospectus being designed & produced! The children had a fun and informative visit and the prospectus looks great!

26th November 2018 - Science Summit 2018

The 2018 Children's National STEM Summit was held at The Double Tree in Congresbury. Over 100 children from 21 schools came to discuss global and local issues that needed STEM solutions. There was a partner Summit being held at Hilderthorpe. The children were able to communicate via video link between the 2 sites. They were supported by representatives from Hydro International, Bristol Airports, Edwards and Nissan. Children learnt about the importance of collaboration, how the world is inter-linked and the importance of science to ensure we all have a sustainable future. The children from both locations have decided to work on projects together to help reduce the impact of plastic in the Oceans. They feel it is their generation that really needs to tackle this problem and they plan to work together to make a difference.

19-22 November 2018 - Pier House Charity Week!

Pier house held their first ever charity week in November raising funds for Bristol Children's Hospital's 'Grand Appeal'.

Activities included designing and colouring their own Gromit, a lunchtime film club where we watched Wallace and Gromit films obviously! A 'Wrong Trousers Day' and challenging children and adults to walk along the 'Lego Brick Road!' A fun time was had by all and we raised over £1700!!

As Wallace would say, 'Not bad Gromit!'

16th November 2018 - House Dog Visit

We were lucky enough to be joined in assembly by all four of our house dogs! Jet for Curzon House, Coco for Pier House, Rocket for Triangle House and of course, Ava for Court House. The dogs even joined us outside for playtime.

15th November 2018 - Raise the Roof Singing Festival

Years 3 and 4 joined with children from All Saints and St Johns for our annual 'Raise the Roof' singing festival. The festival is run by Anne Clough from the Music Service and we all had a great time singing the songs we had learnt.

26th October 2018 - Harvest Festival

We enjoyed coming together as a whole school this morning to celebrate harvest. Songs, poems and prayers were performed by various year groups and it was especially good to be joined by our EYFS classes for their first ever assembly. Sue Reagan, from the Clevedon Foodbank, explained where the food would be going and Mr Hudd said it demonstrated our school moto of 'Achievement by Caring' in action. Thank you to all parents/carers for sending in such a generous amount of donations and to the children for an excellent celebration assembly.

25th October 2018 - Summer Maths Challenge Reward!

All of the children that participated in the summer maths challenge, set by Mr Flory, had a great time celebrating at the maths challenge party! Leon in Year 4, was the overall winner with an incredible 34 hours of maths completed over the summer holidays! Well done!

24th October 2018 - Barnacle Buoys Visit

The Barnacle Buoys came to Mary Elton and entertained Year One and Year Two. The Barnacle Buoys is a group of a cappella sea shanty singers based in North Somerset who give up their time freely to entertain audiences and raise money for chosen charities. The children loved listening and singing along to the sea shanties.

2nd October 2018 - Mary Elton Summer Reading Challenge Tea Party.

The best party in town!

To encourage children in our school to continue reading through the summer, we set them a challenge. Could they read EVERY day through the summer? It would seem that over 100 of them could indeed!

To celebrate their love of reading, books and reading achievement over the holiday, we invited them to a tea party where a copious amount of cake and squash was consumed

“There is a lot of research which shows that children who don't read over the long summer holiday face significant reading loss, which we really notice when they return in September. By providing this challenge we hoped to minimise the summer slump and keep our children reading and learning”.

This year’s challenge is just the beginning as we are aiming to have even more children at the next party!

1st October 2018 - Mischief Makers Library Summer Reading Challenge!

Children who completed this challenge brought in their certificates for celebration in assembly today.

18th-21st September 2018 - Visit from Peter!

Peter, from our link school in Tanzania, visited us last week as part of reciprocal international curriculum project. The school is called Kikoboga school, which is the name of our KS2 building, and is inside Mikumi National Park in the south of the country. The link is now 10 years old. Our children learnt about global issues through our link and explored Tanzania's rich culture, its geography, religions and language. We have engaged in science projects that look at disability, buildings and space. Through this link we can enrich the curriculum our children experience and make it come alive, while enabling them to participate in real world solutions. Peter spent time with each class and answered many questions the children had. He taught us playground games too! We shared our new 5C learning values with Peter and he has taken them with him to share with the staff/children at his school. During Peter's visit, Mr Hudd announced that our main building will be now be named 'Mikumi' in honour of our continued link. Peter is looking forward to our teachers visiting him and supporting a new project on the problems of plastic in our oceans. We said before he left "hakuna matata, we'll see you in 2019".

First Week Back - Mark Making

In the first week back, our children have been looking at the learning dispositions, we all need to help us move our learning forward. We celebrated what we have learnt with an exhibition in the hall.

We believe these are the 5 words that describe the skills that our children need to draw on to achieve their best: courageous, collaborative, a critical thinker, curious and creative. We call these the 5Cs. At Mary Elton we represent these through 5 animals: the owl, lion, monkey, spider and mongoose. Do you know which animal goes with each disposition? Can you think of a country beginning with T where all these animals are all found?

These 5 animals have been designed by our children in collaboration with That Copy Shop - inspired by Tanzanian Tinga-Tinga paintings. You will see their stylised creations around the school and our children referring to them, when they talk about their learning.

2017 - 2018

Papercut Animation Project

A group of talented Mary Elton children from years 4 and 5 have worked together, since March this year, to create a fantastic papercut animation. The children were set the brief to create a papercut animation that evoked an emotion from their audience. This was new to all of us but, with guidance from Mr Roberts and Mr Nelson from Clevedon School, we created something meaningful and that fit the brief set. Igi, Hebe, Elif and Filip worked extremely hard with Miss Brown on the whole process from story board to scene/character creation and finally, filming and deciding on the sound effects/music. We invite you to watch our video below and we wonder if you can work out which emotions our group went for … ?

Nice Carnival - 9th July 2018

Mary Elton Primary School's international links were celebrated with a colourful and creative carnival. Inspired by the annual carnival in Nice, where one of the school's link schools is situated, the theme of this year's carnival was Space. Aliens, astronauts, star-trekkers and even some rock and roll dancers paraded around the school field, in sunshine that made everyone feel that like they had travelled to the south of France. The school was grateful to ASDA for the loan of several trolleys that were used as the base for the carnival floats. Following the parade, the whole school sang French songs, enjoyed carnival doughnuts and played traditional French playground games. Thank you to Mrs Miller who organised and led the whole event!

Sports Days 2018

On a few scorching days, the children still managed to excel at the various events in their Sports Day! Whether thundering down the track or balancing a very wobbly "egg" on a spoon, everyone managed to participate with enthusiasm. (We thought we even saw flames coming out from behind some of the children due to the speed they were going!) Well done and thank you to the parents for all the support!

Summer Enrichment at Clevedon School - 3rd July 2018

10 of our talented young mathematicians had the opportunity to work collaboratively with similar ability students from other local primary schools to solve a Murder Mystery! The children had to use all their problem solving skills to crack codes and solve puzzles in order to find ‘Whodunnit!’ whilst making new friendships along the way. Everyone agreed they had a great time and Jacob and Kieran were even in the winning team!

Queen Square Cluster Choir Event - 29th June 2018

Years 3 and 4 took part in the cluster choir event. They had been practising hard after initial direction from Ms Murray (Clevedon School) and did Mary Elton proud! They sang their hearts out with renditions of 'This is me' from the Greatest Showman, 'All of me' by John Legend and 'How far I'll go' from Moana to name a few. The crowd were all shouting "encore" by the end! Check out the video and photos below.

Jim Cole Visit - 13th June 2018

The children at Mary Elton Primary School had a fun, energetic and inspiring day with running and fitness expert Jim Cole. Jim began the day sharing inspiring stories about his running experiences and the benefits of daily exercise to the whole school. To keep the excitement going, Jim encouraged all the students (and staff) to go on a run around the school playground. The children (and some of the staff) absolutely loved running and encouraging others to do their best. Jim continued his day visiting each year group telling stories and answering questions. The children and staff really enjoyed Jim's visit. Check out Jim's website for more information.

World Down Syndrome Day - 21st March 2018

We celebrated World Down Syndrome day by taking part in 'Lots of Socks'! We wore lots of socks, colourful socks, odd socks and three socks (to represent the extra chromosome). Year 4 created chromosome chains with the extra special chromosome at the end.

Big Bang Fair - 14th March 2018

KS2 attended The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair which is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people in the UK.

The aim was to show young people the exciting and rewarding opportunities out there for them with the right experience and qualifications, by bringing classroom learning to life.

The children had the opportunity to watch high-octane theatre shows, visit and take part in over 150 interactive stands and workshops as well as get involved in inspiring science and engineering projects.

It is safe to say that our KS2 children were enthused by the trip with many commenting that they have a love for Science that they didn't know they had before.

Hedgehog STEM Challenge - March 2018

The plan is to involve as many schools as possible, to encourage parents, neighbours and the community to ensure there is a gap in our garden fences to enable hedgehogs to continue to access garden habitats. Hedgehogs are in steep decline - fencing off of gardens is a major issues! See Burrington School's video posted on Newsround website for more information. Burrington School, Northleaze and Mary Elton are the main leaders in the programme.

To support the project our children have built buggies with child made hedgehogs inside and tested transporting them via elastic power through a model hole in a fence. The most accurate buggy in KS1 and KS2 will go to the final that is taking place on Thursday 15th March in the Victoria Rooms of Bristol University. 20 plus schools are taking part from across Somerset, Bristol and North Somerset.

We have camera traps to lend to families who think they now have hedgehogs using the gaps/holes in their fences. Video footage will provide us with evidence of impact. Schools from outside our group of 20 will potentially be able to access camera traps - so we will get video footage from across the country. Spring Watch want our video footage to show! Please see Mr Thurgur if you would like to borrow a camera trap.

The main learning points of the initiative are - the importance of wildlife corridors to ensure species survive in our shrinking world (hedgehog corridors in this case)- the importance and power of collaboration - that children can see that they can impact on their world and make a positive contribution

Please see our gallery showing the work each year group has put into this project.